An improved genetic algorithm with variable neighbourhood search for flexible job-shop scheduling problem

The Flexible Job Shop Scheduling Problem (FJSP), a classical NP-hard problem, requires the solution of two aspects of the complex problem, the first is to assign each operation to an available machine, and the second is to sequence each operation. In this paper, we propose an improved genetic algorithm with variable neighbourhood search(IGA-VNS), which improves the stability of the algorithm by using an improved elite pool strategy and a hybrid selection strategy, and the variable neighbourhood search algorithm (VNS), it improves the local search ability of the algorithm and makes the search process more efficient. Experiments proved the effectiveness of the algorithm.